From Difference to Dominance to Domesticity: Care as Work, Gender as Tradition
![handle is hein.journals/chknt76 and id is 1465 raw text is: FROM DIFFERENCE TO DOMINANCE TO DOMESTICITY:
CARE AS WORK, GENDER AS TRADITION
JOAN WILLIAMS*
INTRODUCTION
For much of the late 1980s and 1990s, feminist jurisprudence
focused primarily on the study of eroticized dominance.' Domestic
violence, traditionally seen as uncontrollable outbursts of anger by
individual men, was seen as the process of regaining control over
women who-in the view of their intimate partners-were claiming
too much power.2 Sexual harassment, traditionally seen as the bad
taste of a few men who just needed to add a bit more class to their
act, was seen as integral to the gender policing of women out of good
blue- and white-collar jobs.' Pornography, traditionally seen from the
frame of civil liberties, was placed firmly within a new frame, as part
of the social system that eroticizes sexual dominance and helps create
a climate of permission for the sexual exploitation of women and
feminized men.4
* Professor of Law and Director, Program on Gender, Work & Family, American
University, Washington College of Law. Many thanks to Naomi Cahn, whose insightful
comments have greatly improved this Article and whose generosity in making time to comment
on my work is greatly appreciated. Grateful thanks as well to the expert research assistance of
Brooke Grandle, Rob Knight, Inbal Sansani, and Elizabeth Zimmer. Work on this Article was
made possible by the Dean's Research Course Release Program; thanks also to the Alfred P.
Sloan Foundation.
1. Although the thrust of feminist jurisprudence focused on the sex/violence axis, some
commentators continued to develop the work/family axis. See, e.g., MARTHA ALBERTSON
FINEMAN, THE ILLUSION OF EQUALITY: THE RHETORIC AND REALITY OF DIVORCE REFORM
(1991) (hereinafter FINEMAN, ILLUSION OF EQUALITY); MARTHA ALBERTSON FINEMAN, THE
NEUTERED MOTHER, THE SEXUAL FAMILY, AND OTHER TWENTIETH CENTURY TRAGEDIES
(1995) [hereinafter FINEMAN, NEUTERED MOTHER]; DEBORAH L. RHODE, SPEAKING OF SEX:
THE DENIAL OF GENDER INEQUALITY (1997); DEBORAH L. RHODE, JUSTICE AND GENDER,
SEX DISCRIMINATION AND THE LAW (1989); Joan C. Williams, Deconstructing Gender, 87
MICH. L. REV. 797 (1989); Jana B. Singer, Divorce Reform and Gender Justice, 67 N.C. L. REV.
1103 (1989).
2. See, e.g., Martha R. Mahoney, Exit: Power and the Idea of Leaving in Love, Work, and
the Confirmation Hearings, 65 S. CAL. L. REV. 1283, 1304 & n.89 (1992).
3. See, e.g., CATHARINE A. MACKINNON, SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WORKING WOMEN
7 (1979); Vicki Schultz, Reconceptualizing Sexual Harassment, 107 YALE L.J. 1683, 1687 (1998).
4. See, e.g., CATHARINE A. MACKINNON, TOWARD A FEMINIST THEORY OF THE STATE
138-39 (1989); Peter Kwan, Jeffrey Dahmer and the Cosynthesis of Categories, 48 HASTINGS L.J.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/chknt76&div=46&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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From Difference to Dominance to Domesticity: Care as Work, Gender as Tradition
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